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Nephilim
The Nephilim are a race of hybrid beings within Caged. They are the offspring of angels and demons; and are thus considered "the third race." However, despite being equally powerful than either race alone, the Nephilim are a severely endangered species - as any and all known existing Nephilim were hunted down and slain by demons and angels out of fear of their power. Profile History Origins Nephilim are giants which appear in the Old Testament. They are the offspring of the "sons of God", i.e. fallen angels, and the "daughters of men", i.e. human women. This differs from the Caged definition of Nephilim as the offspring of angels and demons. They were considered the heroes of old, possessed of great strength and size, and were thought to inhabit Canaan. Several apocryphal texts finger their existence as one of God's reasons for flooding the Earth as they had become too numerous and too violent. Description Due to their hybrid nature, Nephilims possess both demonic and angelic powers, and are capable of crossing between the worlds. Due to their special nature, they are the only ones strong enough to slay the Demon King. Because of this, Satan and his demon hordes waged a war of genocide on the Nephilim and wiped them all out, as well as declaring it a crime for a demon to produce offspring with an angel. Abilities The full range of their abilities are unknown, although considerable. As a rule they seem to possess certain common abilities, such as the ability to jump a second time in mid-air with demonic magic as well as preternatural strength, agility, coordination, precision and regenerative abilities. The most notable powers of the Nephilim comes from their hybrid blood, combining the powers of angels and demons, which they can switch between at will. These include the ability to use angelic and demonic weapons. They can also glide like angels, although true flight does not seem to be one of their abilities as they do not possess either angelic or demonic wings. They can also perform two kinds of dodges, based on which powers they are using at the time; a Demon Dodge grants their next blows greater power, while an Angel Dodge increases their reaction speed and causes them to instantaneously teleport through Limbo and back again, allowing them to quickly flank their enemies. Nephilim also possess the ability to increase their power tremendously via the Devil Trigger which, despite its name, unleashes, or at least manifests, the full force of both their angelic and demonic abilities. The effects of this power seem to vary, but generally makes the Nephilim stronger and regenerate its health quicker. Beyond this, the Devil Trigger powers that have been shown include unleashing chaos into the world to freeze enemies in mid air or summoning a spectral doppelganger of the Nephilim to aid it in battle. In addition to these powers, it seems that Nephilim can possess some form of teleportation powers. Etymology The Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon (1906) gives the meaning of nephilim as "giants", and holds that proposed etymologies of the word are "all very precarious". Many suggested interpretations are based on the assumption that the word is a derivative of Hebrew verbal root n-ph-l (נ־פ־ל) "fall". Robert Baker Girdlestone argued in 1871 the word comes from the Hiphil causative stem, implying that the nephilim are to be perceived as "those that cause others to fall down". Ronald Hendel states that it is a passive form "ones who have fallen", grammatically analogous to paqid "one who is appointed" (i.e., overseer), asir "one who is bound" (i.e., prisoner), etc. The majority of ancient biblical versions—including the Septuagint, Theodotion, Latin Vulgate, Samaritan Targum, Targum Onkelos, and Targum Neofiti—interpret the word to mean "giants". Symmachus translates it as "the violent ones"] and Aquila's translation has been interpreted to mean either "the fallen ones" or "the ones falling their enemies". Trivia Category:Races Category:Nephilim